-,:::--- ' ' " , -,'"" . .' "" \ -, - J t (,,' t '. I ' " .-.7f ""\ 7 1 ) c:::" '\ l - t. " , 7' , ', " _ f:'f ", C; \, ".:", \ ."11 '\,j' , , Af ' (1 1 ,. , ' r ,"''-u x ! ) ," < \ \ , r , ';' \,:}" ,\ , ( \ ' . ., " ( ' y :: P, I ... '" , " \ y'>>- # j ':: ': """lit<< {( ;: \ , .., I " ("; 4 ' .:,' 98 , '\ J$" t \ r ø .. ,, Woo ,:' ".. -- ><> - \ " -tt h?1 1 t ,,- '^ -.f - < -ff ;, > J t 10 r: ,1 .....- 4 ,. "" .At -- ,) "" ^" ... " ....> v, .ø þ ....- ø ^ #- < f I " ,t .. , p / . ' ( "'/ ' f, \, r > ., ' t \' t f\ 1 f $ T P" ø::: r: ( I ,/' }- r I \ 't f f t,1 t\r^"" '" # \ " ..'t J " \ Q I " "I hate to bother you guys, but nothing seems to be happening for me." underlying assumption is that the attractions of a so-called "normal" life-a job, a family, a house in the suburbs-far outweigh the attractions of a life of crime. Over the years, Thrasher's ideas would be repeated, with variations, in many other studies, monographs, and books, and they still echo in current sociological theory, coloring the way youth-gang members are perceived, making them seem dis- tant, opposite, always somewhat less than human. In Los Angeles County, there are Hispanic youth gangs whose histories go back almost a century, involving three and sometimes four generations of men. There are black gangs of such size, sophistication, and economic well-being that they put many small corporations to shame. There are gangs of Chinese teen-agers who run gambling emporiums as skillfully as old Vegas hands. When immigrants, legal or illegal, come to Southern Cal- ifornia, their children form gangs- Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Hondu- ran, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Guate- malan There are Samoan gangs in Los Angeles County, and gangs from . . Tonga, and they feud with each other just as their ancestors did on the is- lands. Increasingly, in affluent subur- ban towns, there are gangs of white teen -agers, kids from decent homes, who-the saying goes-"have every- thing," and still take to the streets. I N many ways, the San Fernando Valley is the quintessential suburb of Los Angeles. It lies roug hI y north- west of the city center and has more tract homes and shopping malls than the entire state of Maine. The valley does not make you think of surfboards and blue skies but of hot rods, toreador pants, and men with crewcuts-all the icons of the nineteen-fifties. Its twenty or so linked towns have a generic look, which is enhanced by thousands of franchises, and the differences among towns are registered in terms of money, not style or philosophy. A wealthy neighborhood is merely a poor one transfigured, with greener lawns, bigger swimming pools, and better- quality ranch houses. There is a ten- dency to see the valley as either a beautiful fulfillment of the American postwar dream or a nightmarish waste- land, but in the end it is an actual place, with actual problems, and those concerning wayward teen-agers often wind up in the lap of Manue] Velaz- quez. The house that Manuel rents from his wife's family is in Sylmar, a quiet town at the northern tip of the valley, where you still find horses and corrals on the borders of subdivisions. When I made my first trip to visit him, in April, he was sitting in his living room nursing his battered hand. Ma- nuel is twenty-seven years old, of me- dium height, and put together solidly, with the broad chest and muscular shoulders of a college wrestler. He has a few extra pounds above his belt, but they don't make him look soft-they just add to his mass and density. His hair, wavy and black, falls over the collar of his shirt, and his round, rather Indian face shows little emotion unless he knows himself to be among friends. His manner toward strangers is polite but wary. If he mistrusts somebody, he may run that person around. He has run certain observers of the youth -gang scene up hillsides aDd down dismal alleys in search of